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The Dunbarton High School graduate and long-time Pickering resident is getting ready to start her professional basketball career playing for Romanian club CSU Alba Iulia in August. For Agunbiade, the chance to play professional basketball is a dream come true.

“I always wanted to play at a professional level (at a young age) and as time went on I realized the place to be for female basketball players is Europe and that’s where I targeted my long-term ending goal, to play professionally in Europe.”

Her goal has been achieved at the ripe age of 22. However it has been a long time in the making. For Agunbiade, the journey to play professional basketball started when she was barely able to crawl.

“The story I’ve been told is that I was in daycare one day and this is when I was first able to crawl and stuff, I picked up the basketball and I would never leave the basketball alone, and all the kids would be playing and I would just be bouncing the basketball.”

It was a comment from a daycare teacher that foreshadowed the six-foot-two basketball forward’s future.

“My mom came to pick me up one day and one of the teachers said to her, ‘You know you have a basketball player on your hands’.”

Little did they know that Agunbiade would go on to make history in her NCAA career with Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She became the only player in Duquesne’s history to score 1,700 points and recover 900 rebounds.

Her lists of accolades are a mile long but she can name playing for Team Canada and starting 128 of 130 games for Duquesne as a few of her accomplishments during her basketball career.

It was only four short years ago that Agunbiade was fielding several NCAA schools offers upon her graduation from DHS. But it was Duquesne she ultimately chose to take her to the next level.

“Duquesne was the first school to contact me and show interest and they were persistent, literally every single day I was receiving a ton of handwritten letters. I knew the things they were sending to me were personalized and they weren’t just copying stuff and sending it out to 100 players and that kind of decided where I would end up going for college and the same thing applied for me choosing an agent and the team I am playing for now (Alba Iulia).”

While there was not a lot of opportunity for women to pursue professional basketball in Pickering, that didn’t stop Agunbiade.

“I have more of an appreciation for Canadian basketball players because I feel basketball and athletics and stuff here is not pushed as much as in the US. If you are interested in basketball you have to push yourself here in order to play at the level of the players in the US.”

Growing up, Agunbiade was always on the taller side. However the height advantage over her peers was both a blessing and a curse.

“I’ve always been tall so coaches would immediately think she’s tall let’s play her under the hoop, but there’s a lot more to me than being under the hoop and doing big girl moves. I’ve always been able to dribble and shoot real well so it kind of took away from my game having to fill in the post for so long.”

It was when she attended Duquesne that she was able to show what she could do.

“When I went to college they were able to stretch out my game a little bit ... so I was able to show my versatility on the floor.”

While she has achieved her long-term goal of playing professional basketball in Europe, she’s not done with Team Canada.

“The 2016 (Rio Olympics) are my aim and I feel like it’s something I can accomplish especially being able to go overseas and get a few professional years under my belt and then coming back and trying to make my mark down here on the national team.”

As for what she wants to do after her basketball career is over:

“I majored in psychology with a minor in sociology and I’ve always been passionate about kids and it’s funny because my name Omowumi means I love kids.”